I asked for a receipt for the far-too-expensive visit to the small Ethiopian farmstead. The men just stared blankly at me. Was I getting ripped off?
Transformation begins underneath our garments of customs, habits, conditioning, culture, and biography. They are our protection and also our tools; they divide or unite us. But only beneath them can what has become be set free. With light. And as it increasingly takes hold of matter, light must eventually become love. Where I am aware of my identities, where I am simply myself, behind my outer garments, there I encounter my human raiment.
Translation Laura Liska
Image Farmstead in southern Ethiopia, 2023, Photo: Gilda Bartel
Gilda Bartel ist Religionswissenschaftlerin, Ethnologin und Waldorflehrerin, arbeitet freiberuflich als Redakteurin, Autorin, Reiseleiterin, Lehrerin und Sozialarbeiterin. Sie ist Mutter zweier Söhne und lebt in Weimar.
